Depression and Hope
by Sacrifice123
Summary: This is the story of Percy Jackson. A normal teenager living in the city of New York, trying to succeed in school and fulfill his goals. Inspired by true life events.
1. Chapter 1

Greetings reader. I hope you'll enjoy this story that I have incorporated bits of my life into. Any feedback or reviews are welcome.

 **Chapter 1**

Percy woke up with a numb look in his eyes. His face held one emotion. Exhaustion. It was another meaningless day. Another day where Percy would get out of bed, greet his parents, go to school, try his best to succeed but would fail and get miserable scores at tests.

Percy's eyes no longer held the excitement and mischief that they once held. Sigh…those were the times. The times where Percy would not care about his report card nor his parents' admonishments.

Now, all he felt was anxiety, sadness and restlessness. It didn't help that he started having insomnia a few weeks back.

Knowing that he had to go to school or face his parents' wrath, Percy forced his eyes to stay open and stared intensively at the white ceiling above him. Grudgingly, he got out of his bed and headed towards the showers, right outside his room.

As he opened his room's door and walked out, he was met with an everyday occurrence. A bowl of cereal was neatly placed on the table in the living room along with a half-filled jug of milk that must have been used by his father before he hurried to work. Near the table was his mother, a jet-black haired woman with a warm personality, sleeping soundlessly on the couch.

"She must have prepared breakfast for dad." Percy thought.

His father, Poseidon Jackson, worked as a marketing manager at a car company and was a determined man. He had ambitions: to become the CEO of the company he worked at.

On the contrary, Percy didn't have any aspiration. All he wanted was to earn enough money in order for him to live happily while keeping his family happy.

His sister Andromeda took after their father and had real ambitions. She wanted to become a member of the upper class and have a high-paying job.

His mother, Sally Jackson, the woman currently sleeping on the living room's couch, was a beautiful and kind mother. Honestly, Percy couldn't have asked for a better mother than her. He would give up his life in a heartbeat for her happiness if he had to. His life didn't mean much to him anyways. He just didn't want to die before he made sure that his family had enough money to live a content life. That was all that mattered. His family's happiness.

After taking a hot shower and eating breakfast, Percy looked at the clock, hanging on the wall of the living room. It read 6:50. School started at 8:00.

Percy lived an hour by common transportation from his school. Thus, he had to use common transport every day for two hours. It was bus first then metro then finally bus again.

After putting on his grey hoodie and blue jeans, he gave a quick glance at the mirror in his room and walked out of his apartment, headed towards the local bus stop.

Percy arrived at his school at 7:40. So he stopped by the convenience store just in front of the the building to buy a can of coffee and a bar of Kitkat.

As he entered his school, he greeted one of the four school monitors, Patrick, a young man who just finished his master's degree in architecture and got the job for a few months to pay off his student loans.

Percy was on good terms with him being a senior and all. Percy respected Patrick and Patrick respected him. That was how it went. You didn't mess with him. He didn't mess with you.

As Percy went up to the fourth floor, munching on his chocolate bar, using the stairs only allowed for seniors (the rest had to take another route that took much longer), he couldn't help but think how unenthusiastic his day was going to be.

It was Monday. And that meant four hours of Math, an hour of English along with and two hours of Biology and an hour of French.

This was going to be a long day….

Math class started horribly. As soon as he got on his seat, he felt his teacher's stare on him. As if he did something wrong.

"Hey Percy, why is he staring at you?" whispered Thalia, the girl to his right.

"I don't know"

Percy figured out a few minutes later that it was probably because he failed a math test. As the teacher handed out the graded exams. Percy's mood immediately went down. A big fat 9/20 was written on the paper with a remark that said: "You should work more"

This only added insult to injury as, unknown to the professor, Percy worked his ass off for the whole night before the test.

The teacher would never know the amount of time and effort Percy took to study. Nor the amount of pain and psychological damage he received when teachers scolded him for getting bad grades.

"Not that he would care even if he knew." muttered Percy.

"Hm? What was that?" asked Thalia, hearing Percy say something

"No, its nothi-" Percy was cut off by a loud and startling voice.

"Mr. Jackson! Please pay attention in class if you ever plan to raise your grades!"

"I'm sorry Mr. Compter"

Oh boy…. This was going to be a long day….


	2. Chapter 2

"You don't get it! What all this means for me! I've let myself down again and you don't know how that feels! To be so ashamed of yourself to the point of feeling completely worthless! No matter how hard you try, I'll never be what you want! They say that hard work pays off. Well guess what! It doesn't! And I'm the living proof of that! You don't know how hard I've tried, all the days that I've spent-…" Percy's voice cracked as he wiped off the tears streaming down his face.

 **Chapter 2**

Four hours of mathematics went as slowly as Percy could remember. During these hours, Percy tried his best to wrap his mind around the information that he was receiving.

It wasn't easy of course. But nevertheless, Percy tried his best. He really did.

As Percy got out of the classroom towards the school cafeteria, he was greeted by Nico, one of his best friends.

"Hey Perce, how was your day?"

"Oh you know, terrible as always."

That's when Percy felt it. It came out without warning. Literally. Beads of sweat were starting to form rapidly in his hand.

"God damn this blasted disorder"

Percy never got used to it no matter how much time he spent living with it. He was suffering from a condition called hyperhidrosis, commonly known as excessive sweating. It was truly a miserable condition to bear. Sweat would form randomly on one's hands making it impossible for the bearer of the curse to touch anything without soaking it. Consequently, Percy always had to bring handkerchiefs and plastic files to tests so that he could place his palm on them while writing. It didn't help that Percy didn't have much of a neat handwriting. Another side effect was that people constantly frowned at you and shied away from you, however polite it may be, if you were near them while the disorder was active. It still hurt Percy in some way. It's not like he had a choice in whether he wanted to be born with this disorder.

"Oh it's starting again ain't it." Nico asked with sympathy in his voice

"Yeah…damn my life…." Percy sighed.

Lunch wasn't bad to be honest. Spaghetti was on the menu.

As he started to much on his food, Michael, one of his classmates, sitting by his left groaned.

"For whatever reason, spaghetti from this school is hard to digest. I swear, I couldn't stop puking the last time we had this at school! The flour they use is just terrible!"

Reyna, a smart girl, the best student of his class actually, laughed loudly and said something that made Michael pout.

Percy smiled. It was nice to see people enjoy themselves.

As Percy got out of the cafeteria. He went to the student's resting room and opened his bag to grab a pack of cigarettes along with a lighter.

Reyna, who was right behind him, spoke up with a disapproving tone.

"Percy. You do know that they are bad for you right."

It annoyed Percy, but it was still comforting to a certain extent to see that she actually cared about his health.

"Yeah yeah…"

Percy sat on the ground of a pretty isolated place where he knew that people didn't pass by often. Calmly taking out a cigarette out of its pack and placing it between his lips, he brought his lighter out and lit the Marlboro.

Inhale. Exhale.

Percy sighed as he observed the smoke gently float away. If only he could be as free as the smoke drifting away to wherever it pleased.

Slowly but surely, the drug was starting to its effect and Percy's muscle started to loosen.

Smoking was a habit he picked up recently this year. He knew without doubt that it was bad for him. You could lung cancer, respiratory arrest, seizures… the list went on and on.

But Percy couldn't bring himself to stop….or he didn't try. His life events were becoming too much for him to bear. They were so heavy that his only way to cope with the misery rested solely on drugs. It became a part of his life now. And a part of him knew that he wanted it to stay that way.

Suddenly, Percy heard thick footsteps echoing throughout the ever-travelling wind. Percy could make out two shadows approaching him. Soon enough, just around the corner appeared Nico with Travis. Travis was of Arabic origin and was muscular. He was nice to Percy but they didn't talk much. However, since Travis hung out with Nico a lot, they would bump into each other from time to time. Overall, they were on good terms.

"Ah I knew I would find you here! Mind passing me a cig?" Nico asked with a beaming smile and a single Airpod fit into his right ear.

Unsurprisingly, the missing one was on Travis' left ear.

"Sure. Travis you want one?" asked Percy looking at the tall boy.

"Yup"

And so they inhaled and exhaled the smoke for the next 10 minutes or so.

This was a common sight. They would head to the same place during pauses from time to time and find each other there. Sometimes, Percy encountered Nico's recently-found girlfriend, Helen, with her group of friends. It was an awkward occurrence to say the least. Helen was two years younger than Percy and he didn't exactly know them. They exchanged a simple Hi and Hello from time to time but other than that…Yeah.

Another weird thing was that one of Helen's best friends, Drew, was Nico's ex. So there was some weird tension amongst the group and Percy for the moment, didn't have any intentions to interfere with their business..

As Percy put out his cigarette, he headed back towards his school. Expecting another tiring hour of English. Oh boy...he hoped that Zoe was in a good mood today...or else...Percy would have to endure a very interesting hour with her.


End file.
